The Backbone of the OR

by James D. Hundley, MD

May 6 – 10, 2013 is National Nurses Week.  Please join the OrthopaedicLIST.com team in celebrating them for their extraordinary efforts.

My exposure has primarily been in the operating room, the PACU, and the wards where they do what is necessary to help patients recover.  Surgeons are generally very good at what they do.  Without nurses, however, we would be lost.

OR nurses prepare the patient, the operating room, the instruments, and help us do what we have set out to do.  If we didn’t have them to do that, we may be able to do one or two cases a day and probably not nearly as well.  Above that, they are typically the most compassionate of caregivers in the OR and their goals are in line with ours:  to do everything we can to help patients do better.

After surgery, nurses take care of patients in the PACU, a time of high risk as they awake from anesthesia.  Because of their skills and competence, we can compartmentalize our thinking and temporarily forget about the patient on whom we have just operated so that we can concentrate on the next.

Then patients go to the nursing floors.  Again, we depend heavily on them to do the right things and they aspire to do the same.  Their training, competence, attention, and compassion make the difference.  We can’t be there all of the time.  There are always nurses there and they know what to do.

Here’s hoping that you fellow surgeons will thank every nurse you see every day, especially this coming week.  As for your nurses, we thank you and hope that you’ll give yourselves a pat on the back, even if we can’t reach out and personally do so to every one of you.

Dr. Hundley is a retired orthopaedic surgeon and a Founder and the President of OrthopaedicLIST.com.